


Food

by ShadowCloning



Series: We Need [1]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Anbu Hatake Kakashi, Canonical Character Death, Food Issues, Kid Umino Iruka, Pre-Slash, Since they're still young, Umino Iruka-centric, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, alternate first meeting, hunger, makes a brief appearance - Freeform, post Kyuubi attack
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-05
Updated: 2020-09-05
Packaged: 2021-03-07 01:55:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,599
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26308915
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShadowCloning/pseuds/ShadowCloning
Summary: There is an emptiness in his core, and Iruka holds it close. It feels right, somehow. Having a hollow ache in his stomache to match the one in his chest.
Relationships: Hatake Kakashi & Umino Iruka, Hatake Kakashi/Umino Iruka
Series: We Need [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1911568
Comments: 9
Kudos: 127





	Food

**Author's Note:**

> I didn't really have a plan when I started this, and it kinda shows lmao. I just couldn't help but think about how Iruka was only around 11 when his parents died, and how he probably didn't know much about cooking at all.

They place the rations in front of him, and he eats. There is no flavor, no warmth. Each bite rests on his tongue like ashes and when he swallows it, his throat is left as dry as the desert. But still, he eats. For the people who can't anymore. For his parents. For the injured, and the weak. He eats because the village is destroyed, and each morsel is precious. To turn up his nose at the rations provided to him would be to spit in the face of all the efforts made to keep him alive. The sacrifices made. The work of the shinobi tirelessly struggling to rescue the fallen, feed the starving, cloth the cold. Iruka is one of hundreds, crouched on the floor of a crowded shelter. 

When he has eaten just enough to know he'll live to see another sunrise, he waits until the chūnin overseeing them is no longer watching. Then, silently, Iruka passes the remainder of his rations off to the child sitting beside him. She's sniffling, just a little, with her mother asleep beside her. When she looks up at him with wide, teary eyes, Iruka musters up a smile. It feels all wrong on his face, the edges brittle and tense, like glass poised to shatter at any moment. But the girl smiles back and the perpetual emptiness in his belly eases just a little, one soothing drop of water falling into the barren wasteland inside him.

The village-wide ceremony to pay respects to the dead is held, but Iruka doesn't attend. Instead he perches in a tree nearby, watching from a place where no one will see him cry.

He lives in the shelter for almost two months. Finding housing for families was the first priority; relocating them to empty homes that managed to stay standing, or moving them into shared housing owned by the larger clans that volunteered to take them in. New homes are built to replace the old, constructed with families in mind. But Iruka has no family. He is (or _was_ ) a student at the academy; no longer a child, yet not quite a shinobi. No one depends on him, and he...he is a leech. Clinging to the village and offering nothing in return. During the day he tries to make himself useful, hauling materials to help with the construction efforts until sweat dampens his dirty clothes and his arms ache. When night falls, he wanders the streets in the dark. There is something strangely cathartic in the way his limbs tremble. Iruka starts returning to the shelter less and less, exists in a state of non-existence in which no one notices his presence...and no one notices his absence. Nobody comes looking for him. When he needs sleep, there are trees with sturdy branches. Every three days or so, he slinks back to the shelter for a serving of rations. Every time there are less people inside, until at last it's nearly empty. The shinobi keeping watch looks up when he approaches. 

"We've been looking for you," he says, and Iruka tries to believe that.

They've found a place for him. It's a small apartment, on nearly the complete opposite side of the village from where his house once stood. There's furniture already in place when Iruka arrives, but no dishes. No silverware. No glasses. A simple oversight, perhaps. But when Iruka opens the refrigerator there's no food, either.

On the bed is a single box. It contains everything they were able to salvage from his house, and everything they were able to recover from...from the bodies. 

Tears sting at his eyes and finally, he lets go. His body trembles so violently that Iruka feels like he's shaking apart, tears leaving molten hot tracks down his cheeks. His hands are clasped desperately over his mouth to muffle the sound.

He doesn't want to disturb the neighbors. 

That night, he goes grocery shopping. Iruka received a miniscule stipend upon moving in, and was told that he'll receive a small payment every couple of weeks until his parents' savings run out. Standing in the middle of the market, he realizes he knows absolutely nothing about food. There's meat and vegetables and fruit and rice and spices and canned goods and instant meals and so so much, and he doesn't know anything. 

His mother and father had always cooked for him.

He leaves, and spends nearly half his meager allowance on takeout instead. It tastes like saltwater from the tears that slip down his face. Outside, the first snow of winter starts to fall. A perpetual chill spreading deep in his bones now accompanies the never-ending hunger.

A day passes. Two. Three. He subsists on instant food and the occasional fruit or vegetable. Iruka thinks about trying to cook something simple...some rice, or soup. But then he remembers his mother's smile as she sits across from him at the dinner table. Remembers the way his father would whistle a tune as he stood at the stove and stirred. And Iruka thinks to himself, why bother?

There's no point if he's going to be eating alone.

The money runs out before the month is even half over, but it doesn’t matter. Everything he eats seems flavorless; he has to force down even the smallest of bites. Just enough to push him onward. Just enough to survive another day. But never enough to erase that feeling in his core. 

The lingering ache of hunger is the only familiar thing he has left.

In the closet that single box of belongings has been hidden away, unopened.

The repairs to the academy have finished, but Iruka doesn't go. No one comes to check on him. No one knocks on his door. No one visits. No one speaks to him. Smiles at him. Looks at him. 

Touches him.

Where once his world had been full of contact- hugs, bumping shoulders, casual brushes, affectionate forehead kisses- now there is only the pressure of the empty air bearing down on him. Perhaps in this way, too, he is starving. 

Iruka never bothered to people-watch before, but now he can't help it. Day after day he walks the snow-covered streets aimlessly, listening to people live their lives. They greet their friends, and their family, and there is talk and laughter as opposed to cold and silence. 

Sometimes Iruka can almost trick himself into feeling like he is a part of it, instead of standing on the outside looking in. On one of these walks it happens- a big burly man comes bursting out of a shop so suddenly that before Iruka can even process what's happened he's landing firmly with his butt in a pile of snow. The man blinks at him, surprised, as if Iruka were the one to have jumped out at him. Then, the man laughs. Chest heaving, eyes crinkled shut, with a smile so bright Iruka feels awestruck by it. 

"Sorry, kid," the man tells Iruka, looking right at him, "I didn't see you!" 

But he does now. And he's laughing. And happy. And, for that brief instant, some of the numbness weighing Iruka down is overshadowed by something warm. Iruka's stunned expression morphs into a grin, and then he's laughing too.

He does it again. And again. Anything, everything. Whatever it takes to get a laugh. Pretending to trip, dropping things, playing harmless little tricks. Anything to make them look at him. But it doesn't always work.

It doesn't.

"Him again?" He hears someone whisper, and another voice answers, twisted with disdain:

"He's so annoying."

So that's the truth of it...isn't it.

Iruka is accustomed to the sting of the cold. The way his ears, fingers, and toes become so icy that it actually feels like they're burning. He knows the pain of hunger, too. Wears the cramping and the hollowed-out ache in his gut like a protective barrier around himself. But this pain is far worse. It strikes his chest like a kunai, lodging there, sharp and unerring.

They aren't wrong. He is an excess, after all. A thing with no purpose. A thing with no reason to live that simply refuses to die. 

It's fine. Even if all they see is an annoyance, they still see him.

Iruka receives another stipend that day, but he doesn't use it to buy warm clothes or groceries. Instead, he plans. Traps are one of the first practical skills they teach at the academy, and even though he hasn't gone back Iruka still remembers. It's easy enough to modify them, tweak them just a little to fit his needs. He ends up spending all his money, but he's sure it will be worth it. 

And it is, because the next day someone says his name for the first time since the kyuubi; someone other than a tired shinobi passionlessly taking roll call just to make sure no one in the shelter died in the night.

"Iruka!" The man who runs the ramen shop hollers, his head and shoulders doused in neon pink paint. Iruka runs the other way, a wide smile on his face as he laughs.

The traps and pranks are fun, at least for him. Glitter bombs, precariously placed paint cans, trip wires that release a downpour of fluffy white snow. They're rudimentary at best, but he knows he could create better ones with practice. And for a few hours, Iruka doesn't think about anything else. He just plays tricks, wreaks havoc, gets noticed. But by the evening the traps have all either been activated by some hapless civilian, or dismantled by those that manage to spot them. There aren't any left, and there isn't any money to make more, and there isn't any money for food, either.

At the end of the day the fun runs out, and Iruka is somehow even emptier than before. 

He wanders the streets for a while until it grows dark. One by one, the lights in the village go out, and the dark is the only thing left. His feet take him to the memorial stone, but before he reaches it Iruka realizes that there's already a figure standing there. There's something strange about them, and when they look up Iruka realizes what it is.

It's an ANBU. The mask gleams, standing out in the dark just as the moon shines in the night sky. His feet feel rooted to the spot and Iruka knows he's scarcely breathing. If an ANBU doesn't want you to see them, you never would. They move in shadows, can appear and disappear faster than the blink of an eye. So Iruka, seeing this one now? Iruka thinks he's about to die. 

He is a burden. A stain. He takes, and gives nothing in return. It would make sense, if the trouble he caused that day were the last straw.

If the village wanted to relieve itself of its burden once and for all.

It makes sense. Doesn't it?

With a flood of shame, Iruka realizes that he's trembling. The ANBU cocks their head to the side, watching. Then, slowly, as if trying not to startle him...the masked shinobi sits, heedless of the snow. Their body is facing the memorial stone, but their head is still turned to look at him. It gives a little jerk, beckoning him over, and Iruka is helpless to do anything but obey. One step at a time he approaches, then at last he stops and simply stands there. Waiting. Staring down at the ANBU in the snow. They make for a haunting sight; mostly shrouded by a black cloak, the hood down so that Iruka can see hair that shines almost like silver in the moonlight. The ANBU pats the spot next to them with a black-gloved hand, and Iruka sits automatically. Nearly as one, they turn their attention to the stone before them. 

There's a breath of silence in which the only movement comes from the snow drifting lazily from the sky. 

"Are you going to kill me?" Iruka asks at last. He doesn't turn away from the stone. It's cowardly, he knows, but if he's going to die here he'd rather do it looking at the names of his mother and father. He can't quite make them out in the dark, but he knows exactly where they are; has memorized their position and could point them out by heart, even blindfolded. 

"Is there a reason I should?" The ANBU replies.  
Iruka hadn't really expect an answer, and the surprise is enough that he turns to look by mistake. The ANBU'S voice sounds younger than Iruka was expecting, but there is a cold calmness there that Iruka's sure no normal kid could ever possess. Iruka squints, but it's hard to tell how tall the shinobi is in the dark, even sitting beside each other as they are. That masked face just continues to stare straight ahead, so again Iruka does the same.

The silence is...comfortable. Somehow not as heavy as it is in his empty apartment. 

"Where's your coat?" The ANBU asks after more than a minute has passed.

Iruka sees no point in lying. "Don't have one," he answers. It had been in his house when it was destroyed, just another piece of his life that he would never get back.

The ANBU doesn't say anything else, so neither does Iruka. The snow bites at his bare skin, and he's tembling from cold rather than fear now, but still he refuses to move.

The silence is broken this time by Iruka's stomache growling.

Instantly, He's mortified. Iruka's face grows hot, a startling feat considering how freezing he is. The ANBU turns and cocks their head in that strange way again.

"You're hungry." They say.

"No." Iruka denies, only to be proved a liar by the way his stomache complains even louder.

There is a heartbeat between them in which neither moves. Iruka is staring at the stylized face that seems to resemble something...almost like a canine. White swirled with red. He blinks, and in the next instant the spot beside him his empty. The only indication that anyone had ever been there at all is the slight disturbance in the snow where they'd sat. There are no footprints, no tracks to follow at all.

Iruka is alone again.

He trudges back to the apartment, and somehow the silence seems even more suffocating than before. 

In the early morning he wakes up to a knock on the window. Iruka sits up, blinking the sleep from his eyes, but no one's there. Instead, there is a small black box sitting on the windowsill. He caries it into the kitchen somewhat warily, frowning as he removes the small square of paper attached to the top. 

There's only one word written on it.

 _Eat_.

Iruka opens the box and his dark eyes go wide. There's fish inside, neatly sliced into and cooked in a way that Iruka has never seen before. It's not the kind of thing he would really consider breakfast food, but still...

He eats.

It tastes warm. Savory. Delicious. It tastes like lazy evenings peering over his mother's shoulder as she chops vegetables, and the sound of his father's laughter as he sneaks in to try and steal a taste of simmering soup. 

It tastes like home. 

Iruka ponders who might have left it, and all that comes to mind is a white mask amidst the falling snow. He scrubs the box until it's sparkling, then leaves it on the windowsill from whence it came. 

**Author's Note:**

> I'm thinking about making this a series in which Iruka gradually heals after the deaths of his parents, with ANBU Kakashi making an increasing number of appearances (as he becomes more and more concerned with Iruka's welfare). Kakairu endgame down the line. It's my first fic in the Naruto verse though, so I'm sorry about any inaccuracies and such.


End file.
